near meltdown while pb is off??!!!

hi, i have had the nerve-shattering experience of having my last-edition 15"pb
overheat while the power was off but the electricity to the pb was on- ie the green "charged" light was on. i don't have one of the bad batteries that were recalled, but it doesn't hold much of a charge any more after only 1 year of use. 6 months after i bought it i had to have the motherboard replaced because everything was starting to go jiggy, but now my warranty is over.
did anyone have such an experience, or know what might be happening.
probably a bad battery, or worse?
thanks, tom

its gotta be the battery.....if the computer was off, then that is the only explanation.

I had a Compaq laptop that did that while the battery was charging. I think the problem was that the battery charger was not automatically turning off when the battery was fully charged. I left it on one night and woke up the next morning to a burning smell. I popped the battery out and it must have been well over 200F; I was surprised it hadn't caught fire or singed the carpet!

I would go ahead and replace that battery. Keeping it and trying to use it may prove to be dangerous...